But the heavy sense of well-being, into which drowsiness plunges one, prevented any feeling of fear, and I continued to sleep placidly. I suppose that at last the smoke began to suffocate me, and on a sudden I started up with a cry of fright. Since I did not die then and there of sheer horror, I am convinced I shall never die. Imagine three wild gypsy faces, all turned on you at the same moment--and with oh, such eyes! such awful eyes! “Don’t kill me! don’t kill me!” I shrieked. The gypsies, who had been almost as startled as I, burst out laughing, and one of them said: “You young scamp, you can boast that you gave us a nice scare!” When I found they could laugh and talk like myself, I took courage, and noticed at the same time what a good smell came from their pot. They made me get down from my perch and demanded where I came from, to whom I belonged, why I was there, and a string of other questions. Satisfied at length of my identity, one of the robbers--for they were robbers--said to me: “Since you are playing truant, I suppose you are hungry. Here, eat this.” And he threw me a shoulder of lamb, half cooked, as though I were a dog. I then noticed they had just been roasting a young lamb, stolen probably from some fold. After we had, in this primitive fashion, all made a good meal, the three men rose, collected their traps and in low tones took counsel together; then one of them turned to me: “Look here, youngster, since you are a bit of a brick we don’t want to harm you, but all the same, we can’t have you spying which way we go, so we are going to pop you into that barrel there. When the day comes you can call out and the first passer-by can release you--if he likes!” “All right,” I said submissively. “Put me into the barrel.” To tell the truth I was very glad to get off so cheaply. In the corner of the hovel stood a battered cask, used, doubtless, at the time of the vintage for fermenting the grape. They caught hold of me by the seat of my trousers, and pop! into the cask I went. So there I found myself, in the middle of the night, in a cask, on the floor of a cottage in ruins. I crouched down, poor little wretch, rolling myself up like a ball, and while waiting for the dawn I said my prayers in low tones to scare the evil spirits. But--imagine my dismay when suddenly I heard, in the dark, something prowling and snorting, round my cask! I held my breath as though I were dead, and committed myself to God and the sainted Virgin. Still I heard it, that dread something going round and round me, sniffing and pushing--what the devil was it? My heart thumped and knocked like a hammer.